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Moon and the Mars
The highly anticipated new novel from the winner of the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize examines NYC and America in the burgeoning moments before the start of the Civil War through the eyes of a young biracial girl.
In Moon and the Mars, set in the impoverished Five Points district of New York City in the years 1857-1863, we experience neighborhood life through the eyes of Theo from childhood to adolescence, an orphan living between the homes of her Black and Irish grandparents. Throughout her formative years, Theo witnesses everything from the creation of tap dance to P.T. Barnum's sensationalist museum to the draft riots that tear NYC asunder, amidst the daily maelstrom of Five Points work, hardship, and camaraderie. Meanwhile, white America's attitudes towards people of color and slavery are shifting—painfully, transformationally—as the nation divides and marches to war.
Corthron's first novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, won the coveted First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction in 2016. It was championed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Angela Y. Davis, among many others, and received rave reviews in The New York Times Book Review, where it was an Editor's Choice, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
In Moon and the Mars, set in the impoverished Five Points district of New York City in the years 1857-1863, we experience neighborhood life through the eyes of Theo from childhood to adolescence, an orphan living between the homes of her Black and Irish grandparents. Throughout her formative years, Theo witnesses everything from the creation of tap dance to P.T. Barnum's sensationalist museum to the draft riots that tear NYC asunder, amidst the daily maelstrom of Five Points work, hardship, and camaraderie. Meanwhile, white America's attitudes towards people of color and slavery are shifting—painfully, transformationally—as the nation divides and marches to war.
Corthron's first novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, won the coveted First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction in 2016. It was championed by Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Angela Y. Davis, among many others, and received rave reviews in The New York Times Book Review, where it was an Editor's Choice, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere.
704 pages, Hardcover
First published August 31, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
January 27, 2022
Appreciated this book’s portrayal of United States’ history, with an emphasis on racism and colorism in the Civil War era. The book makes several insightful commentaries about power and privilege, especially in the context of marginalized Black and Irish families, that still resonate with the state of the country today. Unfortunately I found the writing style really off-putting. I felt the first person present perspective difficult to stay immersed in, in particular because of the lack of quotations, and at times it seemed that the characters’ conversations served as vehicles to describe historical events as opposed to delving deep into characters’ psyches. Not my cup of tea though I think Kia Corthron brought a lot of heart to this work.
September 7, 2021
Moon and the Mars takes place in New York City’s Irish and Black communities in the days leading up to the Civil War and after, and is ’inspired by real historical events.’
This is a story of refugees, from both those formerly enslaved Black families fleeing the South, and those from Ireland, escaping their homeland during the potato famine, as well as others, including the descendants of the original people who inhabited this continent, this country. Seeking independence, seeking a better life with hope for a better future - if not for them then for their descendants.
Family is at the heart of this story, but it is a time of upheaval and turbulence which affects these families. The changes in New York City, housing developments torn down, families forced to leave their homes in the name of progress. The War. The rising hate against the Irish and Black families. Politics. Those who believe that they are better, the colour of their skin declares them so. They abhor those who deign to fraternize with the ones they view as less than.
Meanwhile, while the Civil War rages on, and crimes, including hate crimes, abound. There are moments that are lighter, that offer a glimpse of their former life. Characters such as Charles Sherwood Stratton, better known as Tom Thumb and his wife, Lavinia, along with P.T. Barnum’s famous circus add a momentary break from the hell that has broken loose throughout the city, and surrounding areas. Other ‘real’ people that join the cast include Abraham Lincoln, along with a host of others too long to include them all, but it also includes several historic events that are perhaps lesser known people such as Jane McClellan who was the head matron of the Colored Orphan Asylum. This covers a wide range of events that occurred during this time, many of the actual people that were involved, in one way or another.
There is much in this story that felt eerily relevant to our times, this hatred that spread across the country like wildfire, mobs attacking people and division in the country. But balancing out that background, among these characters there is much generosity, appreciation and a thread of hope that ties it all together with an obvious love for family, both the families we are born into and those that we create.
Published: 7 Sep 2021
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House / Seven Stories Press
May 28, 2022
Wow, I just finished reading Moon and the Mars, which is quite a tome at over 700 pages, but I don't know quite how to start with my review.
So, I will start this way several years ago, I had preordered The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter after reading a glowing review of it. It arrived in my kindle as I was flying cross country to Pittsburgh, to visit my mom who was failing due to Alzheimer's. Memories of that visit will forever be intertwined with the book which made my top 10 for the year.
I later learned that Corthron is a playwright and a tv writer for such series as The Wire. I vowed to read anything that she wrote and so when I saw Moon and the Mars was to be released, I jumped to purchase it.
While Moon and the Mars is quite different from Castle Cross, they do have certain similarities. Neither are short books and both examine the interconnections between characters and races and the historic dynamic behind it.
Moon and the Mars is told from the perspective of young 7 year-old Theo Brooks who lives in the Five Points district of New York City. Theo is an orphan whose father was Black and mother was Irish. She is loved and is being raised by both families. The main time frame of the book is from 1857 to 1863 and as Theo ages her voice develops.
This book does an excellent job in immersing the reader in NYC of that time. I was so impressed with the research that Corthron did in writing this book. I really learned so many things about this time in history. Who knew that there was a time in 1859 that the Aurora Borealis could be seen in Cuba or that Comet Donati came by in 1858 and will not be seen again for another 1600 years? So many details included in this book. So many details that I loved finding out about, but surely will make this book inaccessible to many.
I am not one who needs quotation marks, but I know many readers find it objectionable when they are forgotten. The reader really needs to go with the flow in order to appreciate Moon and the Mars.
There is the small sweet and bitter story of Theo and her family and there struggles set against the backdrop of the larger story of slavery, inequities and the social dynamic which often pits poor against poor and the way it impacted the 1850s and 1860s and how that plays out in our world today. This is a valuable story.
I'm not sure how many people will have the patience to read this book, which even I can see needed editing. I wonder if Corthron loved the time and the place so much that she didn't even want to let go of just a little of it.
So, I will start this way several years ago, I had preordered The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter after reading a glowing review of it. It arrived in my kindle as I was flying cross country to Pittsburgh, to visit my mom who was failing due to Alzheimer's. Memories of that visit will forever be intertwined with the book which made my top 10 for the year.
I later learned that Corthron is a playwright and a tv writer for such series as The Wire. I vowed to read anything that she wrote and so when I saw Moon and the Mars was to be released, I jumped to purchase it.
While Moon and the Mars is quite different from Castle Cross, they do have certain similarities. Neither are short books and both examine the interconnections between characters and races and the historic dynamic behind it.
Moon and the Mars is told from the perspective of young 7 year-old Theo Brooks who lives in the Five Points district of New York City. Theo is an orphan whose father was Black and mother was Irish. She is loved and is being raised by both families. The main time frame of the book is from 1857 to 1863 and as Theo ages her voice develops.
This book does an excellent job in immersing the reader in NYC of that time. I was so impressed with the research that Corthron did in writing this book. I really learned so many things about this time in history. Who knew that there was a time in 1859 that the Aurora Borealis could be seen in Cuba or that Comet Donati came by in 1858 and will not be seen again for another 1600 years? So many details included in this book. So many details that I loved finding out about, but surely will make this book inaccessible to many.
I am not one who needs quotation marks, but I know many readers find it objectionable when they are forgotten. The reader really needs to go with the flow in order to appreciate Moon and the Mars.
There is the small sweet and bitter story of Theo and her family and there struggles set against the backdrop of the larger story of slavery, inequities and the social dynamic which often pits poor against poor and the way it impacted the 1850s and 1860s and how that plays out in our world today. This is a valuable story.
I'm not sure how many people will have the patience to read this book, which even I can see needed editing. I wonder if Corthron loved the time and the place so much that she didn't even want to let go of just a little of it.
Read
February 22, 2022Soft DNF
I haven't been in a great reading mood and I think it's affecting the way that I am interacting with this story. I'll pick this up again and give it another try.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monica Is Reading*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @monicaisreading
Instagram: @readermonica
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
I haven't been in a great reading mood and I think it's affecting the way that I am interacting with this story. I'll pick this up again and give it another try.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monica Is Reading*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @monicaisreading
Instagram: @readermonica
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
September 1, 2021
This book is magnificent. It's compelling as a story (I love these characters!) and is perhaps the next best thing to actually owning a time portal - New York City in the 1850s-70s comes alive, not only through the setting and plot, but also through the dialogue (Corthron is also an award-winning playwright), the newspaper headings, and the intricate ways that world events affect everyday people. Corthron's extensive bibliography at the end of the novel demonstrates how seriously she takes the research, but the novel is so warm and full of life that it doesn't read like a textbook. Instead, you feel as if you have been dropped into this world and wish you could stay even longer.
August 25, 2022
I'm not a big fan of this novel, though many are. I really got into it the first 75 pages or so, but then the "Wikipedia" dialogue really became evident: telling current events through the characters' conversations with one another. I found it to be forced. Who, especially people with at most a grade school education, talks that way? By the end, I cared enough about Theo and Ciaran to finish the story. The author had a very ambitious idea that almost worked
May 20, 2021
Corthron is a writer of consciousness and point of view. Like her plays, her novels are highly dynamic and she creates characters who own history. So as a result this novel repositions the tale of mid 19th century New York from the perspective of an Irish/Black young woman living in Five Points, which Corthron represents as a community of proximity, ever in conversation and realignment. Corthron's bold move is to reconfigure the role of the emblematic American or New Yorker and therefore she unfolds the history, our history, through this newly central protagonist's eyes. Sometimes I feel that characters know too much about their own time- more than any real person would know, but her embrace of the archive is also attractive and engaging. Everything is medias res (in the middle of the action) which makes the durational issues - the unfolding of time- high energy, which can feel repetitive. But Corthron is a highly original artist, with her own voice about Voice, and really can't be compared to anyone else. She has to be appreciated on her own terms, and engaged on her own terms. I do think that the interior type choices by the book's designer are pretty bad, and this hurts the reading experience, but the author's intention to create a visual documentary collage to enhance the sense of time and place is informative and well chosen.
November 22, 2021
This is great history but awkward fiction.
I'd heard high praise for this novel, but multiple elements annoyed me. First of all, the writing style. First-person present tense has never been my cup of tea, and this was exacerbated by. so. many. sentence. fragments. Theo was never convincingly the age she was supposed to be. The pacing is slow from ages 7-14 and then leaps forward to age 28 near the end. Finally, it seemed like Cothron had a LOOONG list of mid-1800s people and events she wanted to include, and she includes EVERY ONE of them even if they're shoehorned in and don't make a cohesive whole. Lots of cameos of unjustly little-known historical figures with mini-biographies. Characters are constantly relating historic events to each other or just flat out reading aloud news stories.
The subject matter was important but the delivery left a great deal to be desired.
I'd heard high praise for this novel, but multiple elements annoyed me. First of all, the writing style. First-person present tense has never been my cup of tea, and this was exacerbated by. so. many. sentence. fragments. Theo was never convincingly the age she was supposed to be. The pacing is slow from ages 7-14 and then leaps forward to age 28 near the end. Finally, it seemed like Cothron had a LOOONG list of mid-1800s people and events she wanted to include, and she includes EVERY ONE of them even if they're shoehorned in and don't make a cohesive whole. Lots of cameos of unjustly little-known historical figures with mini-biographies. Characters are constantly relating historic events to each other or just flat out reading aloud news stories.
The subject matter was important but the delivery left a great deal to be desired.
September 22, 2021
I finished Moon and the Mars this morning, but needed to just sit with it.
It’s that book that you read, finish, and then need to carry around with you, in your hands, and especially, in your heart.
It’s a novel, but it’s also a history. It brought me so much joy but made my heart so heavy.
It’s worthy of every star, and it’s deserving of every award.
Kia Corthron, thank you for the gift of Theo ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It’s that book that you read, finish, and then need to carry around with you, in your hands, and especially, in your heart.
It’s a novel, but it’s also a history. It brought me so much joy but made my heart so heavy.
It’s worthy of every star, and it’s deserving of every award.
Kia Corthron, thank you for the gift of Theo ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
September 21, 2021
...And this would be why I read - for books like this! And this would be why I LOVE to read - because of books like this!
September 28, 2022
Extraordinary. I'd ding it for a surfeit of smitings by the Exposition Fairy but this is an historical novel, and all the characters are witnesses.
October 23, 2021
What a remarkable achievement. The author is so patient and attentive to the inner lives of the characters while also keeping the narrative moving. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Brilliant!
June 20, 2021
The author's writing style is unique and compelling. It consists of dialogue with some interior monologue. The author's playwriting experience makes this beautiful writing bring the story alive and makes the book very hard to put down. The characters have depth and the love among the members of the protagonist's extended African American and Irish families is evident in everything they do. The amount of motivation, emotion, and history that the author communicates through dialogue is amazing. The book contains many fascinating details about the Civil War, and the extensive bibliography offers many sources for further reading. The complex characters, descriptions of their living conditions, fears, hopes, and dreams, and the serious social issues they faced will provide much to discuss for book groups. There is even a book group in this novel.
This book will keep me thinking about it for a long, long time.
This book will keep me thinking about it for a long, long time.
July 22, 2022
I like a kaleidoscopic tale of New York City history, but I think this book was weighed down by trying to squeeze in too much material; there are long stretches where different characters ask each other about historical events and historical figures and take turns explaining things in a very expository way, and it makes the story less engaging.
January 8, 2022
I had such high hopes for this book just from the reviews alone and it feel short. It was slow going and read like a history book. I felt like I missed the point of the story.
January 16, 2022
Stunning novel. It is so broad and rich in scope it feels as though it encompasses many countries and multiple generations rather than two families and several blocks in New York City. The story is profound and touching, and Theo is an unforgettable character. We are given history lessons along with an abundance of family story. The technique of inserting news headlines of the day as the story unravels adds a depth and reality to what Theo, her family and neighborhoods are experiencing. I love a story that breaks the heart and lifts it at the same time.
October 7, 2022
4.5 rounded up. As a relatively new resident of New York, I absolutely loved the descriptions of this time in city’s history, much of it unknown to me, and painstakingly research by Corthron. I found the protagonist, Theo’s, first person account of her experience growing up in 5 points charming and allowed the reader to appreciate the wonders and horrors of the city in the mid-1800s with childlike awe as well. My few criticisms are that the writing lacked some scene-setting description, which would have added to the richness of the portrayal of the city. I also found that the lack of quotation marks to be a bit jarring and made some scenes a bit hard to follow. Overall highly recommend, especially if you are into NYC history!
December 22, 2021
Very good!
The Audio was very entertaining.
The Audio was very entertaining.
September 14, 2023
I have so many thoughts about this book!! Overall, an incredibly impressive novel that is well researched and deeply immersive. It was very much a novel showcasing history, and at some points felt overly expository; I will admit that I skimmed many of the fact details. It was just so LONG and my TBR so distracting. IMO, the novel SHINED the most in the scenes where Theo is with her family. I felt like these were real people, even though they were living centuries behind me. Another amazing thing was how the novel started off with such a juvenile, dialectic voice who grew to be more eloquent and mature. Really really well done. Even if i was at times rushing to get through this, I cannot in good faith give this novel anything other than 5 stars for what an achievement it is!
June 29, 2021
Wow, what and amazing epic tale of this country, immigrants, race, native Americans, all told from the perspective of a wonderful young person and later and adult. I can't praise this book enough. It's a painful but rich telling of some really brutal times but artful.
This was a galley.. Go and buy it as soon as it comes out. I read her previous novel and loved it. This is even more epic.
This was a galley.. Go and buy it as soon as it comes out. I read her previous novel and loved it. This is even more epic.
December 31, 2022
I would give this book 6 stars if they were available. I’ll try to write a better, more detailed and nuanced review but ugh … how I love Theodora Brigid Brook. She is definitely one of my top 5 favorite characters. I want to travel down all the roads with her and felt both satisfied with her journey at the end but also really wanting more.
May 22, 2022
Such a great book, the reader grows with Theo as she learns about a complex world and witnesses so much history. One of the best books of Northern Civil War era I’ve read, and one where the parallels to our modern society are skillfully highlighted.
December 31, 2021
A wholly original narrative voice animates an underexplored historical context while facing down human foibles with amusement, love and hope. This is one of the best novels I've read in the last 10 years.
The story starts in 1840s New York as the young narrator's family is about to be displaced to build Central Park. We listen in as Theo Brook's extended African-American and Irish family navigates poverty, identity, work and the Civil War in bursting-with-life Five Points. The detailed historical context could have dragged the story down in a lesser author's hands, but in Theo's sparkling, lively and wholly original narrative voice, it's the informative backdrop to the much more fascinating experience of human living. Corthron's genius as an author is to create a voice for Theo that sounds believably historical while also maturing from a child to an educated young woman. Later on, we even see Theo code-switch as her internal monologue reflects more education than comes through in her spoken language.
Ahistorical language in historical novels is a huge pet peeve of mine and something I'll abandon a book for. I remember reading that Arthur Miller's great achievement in The Crucible was to create a language that sounded like the Puritans, and evoked their world, without sounding distractingly old-timey in the way something by Cotton Mather would today. Corthron has done this, but set herself an even bigger challenge than Miller had by seamlessly blending period texts--archival newspaper articles and songs--into her own novel. Her characters can, with total believability, quote "John Brown's Body" and go back to talking, and rather than making them sound old-timey or out of context, it helps us hear what that song meant to those who sang it when it was new.
The historical research is of the very best kind--heavy on lifestyle details like how people ate, budgeted and celebrated holidays, worlds away from the "Forrest Gump" style of writing where every widely-known trope about a particular period just happens to be relevant to one character's life. I was delighted to learn a lot about a region that means a lot to me, New York and Albany, through an experience I know shamefully little about, the 19th century African-American community in those parts. Corthron deals with contemporary issues including intersectionality, mixed-race identity, and cross-racial solidarity or competition through scenarios and conversations that feel totally appropriate to the period and setting--in fact, feel like the only time and place that could hold them, other than our own, must be mid-19th century New York. Historical fiction fails for me when the characters aren't believably constrained by their circumstances, or when the past isn't allowed to be different than now. On the other hand--no spoilers--it made me smile to know that one of the character arcs that feels most contemporary does have documented historical precedent in the period of the book. Read it and figure out which one!
I did the Arthur Miller comparison, but the name that kept coming up for me as I read was Dickens. Dickens at his best could depict poor and powerless people with humanity and humor, showing the dignity in their lives while documenting the casual cruelty of the conditions society forced on them. Corthron does this, sans Dickens's cheese. Like Dickens's characters, hers say they are poor, understand pretty well that the rich benefit from their poverty, have a variety of different perspectives on how to proceed given that crushing reality, and take justifiable pride in their survival despite it. I can't think of a fiction writer since Dickens who takes the textured reality of poverty so seriously.
Moon and the Mars is a joyful book--which isn't to say that nothing bad happens in it or that it shies away from dark historical truths. Theo's self-assured, intelligent narration gives us the right to hope that no matter what happens, her curious, confident spirit will persevere. In these dreary days, wouldn't you like to read a Great Thumping Novel that takes you out of our times, teaches you something about others, and promises that during the hours you entrust to it, everything will be fundamentally OK? I know I did. I only wish I could read it again for the first time.
The story starts in 1840s New York as the young narrator's family is about to be displaced to build Central Park. We listen in as Theo Brook's extended African-American and Irish family navigates poverty, identity, work and the Civil War in bursting-with-life Five Points. The detailed historical context could have dragged the story down in a lesser author's hands, but in Theo's sparkling, lively and wholly original narrative voice, it's the informative backdrop to the much more fascinating experience of human living. Corthron's genius as an author is to create a voice for Theo that sounds believably historical while also maturing from a child to an educated young woman. Later on, we even see Theo code-switch as her internal monologue reflects more education than comes through in her spoken language.
Ahistorical language in historical novels is a huge pet peeve of mine and something I'll abandon a book for. I remember reading that Arthur Miller's great achievement in The Crucible was to create a language that sounded like the Puritans, and evoked their world, without sounding distractingly old-timey in the way something by Cotton Mather would today. Corthron has done this, but set herself an even bigger challenge than Miller had by seamlessly blending period texts--archival newspaper articles and songs--into her own novel. Her characters can, with total believability, quote "John Brown's Body" and go back to talking, and rather than making them sound old-timey or out of context, it helps us hear what that song meant to those who sang it when it was new.
The historical research is of the very best kind--heavy on lifestyle details like how people ate, budgeted and celebrated holidays, worlds away from the "Forrest Gump" style of writing where every widely-known trope about a particular period just happens to be relevant to one character's life. I was delighted to learn a lot about a region that means a lot to me, New York and Albany, through an experience I know shamefully little about, the 19th century African-American community in those parts. Corthron deals with contemporary issues including intersectionality, mixed-race identity, and cross-racial solidarity or competition through scenarios and conversations that feel totally appropriate to the period and setting--in fact, feel like the only time and place that could hold them, other than our own, must be mid-19th century New York. Historical fiction fails for me when the characters aren't believably constrained by their circumstances, or when the past isn't allowed to be different than now. On the other hand--no spoilers--it made me smile to know that one of the character arcs that feels most contemporary does have documented historical precedent in the period of the book. Read it and figure out which one!
I did the Arthur Miller comparison, but the name that kept coming up for me as I read was Dickens. Dickens at his best could depict poor and powerless people with humanity and humor, showing the dignity in their lives while documenting the casual cruelty of the conditions society forced on them. Corthron does this, sans Dickens's cheese. Like Dickens's characters, hers say they are poor, understand pretty well that the rich benefit from their poverty, have a variety of different perspectives on how to proceed given that crushing reality, and take justifiable pride in their survival despite it. I can't think of a fiction writer since Dickens who takes the textured reality of poverty so seriously.
Moon and the Mars is a joyful book--which isn't to say that nothing bad happens in it or that it shies away from dark historical truths. Theo's self-assured, intelligent narration gives us the right to hope that no matter what happens, her curious, confident spirit will persevere. In these dreary days, wouldn't you like to read a Great Thumping Novel that takes you out of our times, teaches you something about others, and promises that during the hours you entrust to it, everything will be fundamentally OK? I know I did. I only wish I could read it again for the first time.
March 15, 2022
"But I like Moon and the Mars, and I think maybe they did get married. Brigid and Ezekiel comin together and blindin two bright lights: the Brook and the Cahill, the Irish and the colored, the fiery and the calm--except the last is something both families brung. Took fire for my Grammy and mammy and auntie to survive the famine and the coffin ships, fire for my Grammy and gran-gran and new auntie to survive slavery. And the calm keepin em all goin every day, whether food and comforts bountiful or scarce. Moon and the mars supplementin and complementin each other for it sure be a lonely sky without em both."
Really loved this book! I'm a bit sad that I haven't really heard anyone talking about it.
The story is told from the perspective of Theo, beginning in her childhood years. It did take me a bit of time to adjust to the narration, but before long I felt comfortable with Theo's voice and she came to feel like a dear friend. Theo is half-black half-Irish living in the slummy Five Points neighborhood of New York City in the years before the Civil War. Kia Corthron did a wonderful job of bringing the setting to life, both the neighborhood and the time period. The history was woven into the story in a manner that never felt forced, and the characters' opinions and reactions to the various occurrences felt historically accurate to me. That's perhaps the most impressive piece of Corthron's writing to me--that she managed to capture the voices and feelings of two distinct peoples, the Irish and the black in antebellum America, so realistically and truthfully. This is a well-researched and well-intentioned piece of historical fiction.
Mostly I loved the characters and the family dynamics. Theo's family members include freed slaves, escaped slaves, and freedmen who are captured into slavery, as well as escapees from the great famine in Ireland. Her friends include other orphans, prostitutes, wealthy benefactors, and Native Americans, and so this story features snippets of all slices of American life and serves as a true window into the time. There are so many moments from Moon and the Mars that I will cherish, and I hope never to forget the book's messages about love & identity.
Really loved this book! I'm a bit sad that I haven't really heard anyone talking about it.
The story is told from the perspective of Theo, beginning in her childhood years. It did take me a bit of time to adjust to the narration, but before long I felt comfortable with Theo's voice and she came to feel like a dear friend. Theo is half-black half-Irish living in the slummy Five Points neighborhood of New York City in the years before the Civil War. Kia Corthron did a wonderful job of bringing the setting to life, both the neighborhood and the time period. The history was woven into the story in a manner that never felt forced, and the characters' opinions and reactions to the various occurrences felt historically accurate to me. That's perhaps the most impressive piece of Corthron's writing to me--that she managed to capture the voices and feelings of two distinct peoples, the Irish and the black in antebellum America, so realistically and truthfully. This is a well-researched and well-intentioned piece of historical fiction.
Mostly I loved the characters and the family dynamics. Theo's family members include freed slaves, escaped slaves, and freedmen who are captured into slavery, as well as escapees from the great famine in Ireland. Her friends include other orphans, prostitutes, wealthy benefactors, and Native Americans, and so this story features snippets of all slices of American life and serves as a true window into the time. There are so many moments from Moon and the Mars that I will cherish, and I hope never to forget the book's messages about love & identity.
June 30, 2022
The characters in this book are wonderful, each an individual. They talk, and read, and see, and hear about what is happening or has happened to their people and to other oppressed people - the poor, the destitute, the persecuted, the exterminated. At times it reads like one history lesson after another. But that's okay, I guess. The author is careful to weave the history in and out of the protagonist's daily experience, even when giving full (often unedited) accounts from the literature of the times. She seems to have also tried not to leave any group out - African, Irish, German, and Native Americans; white female abolitionists and women's rights people; Muslim and Jewish people; disabled people; gay and trans people.
The protagonist is forced through her mixed relations to see the mess that racism and capitalism has created, to come to the awful truth that even oppressed people who gain some power might turn against those beneath them. But her familial relations also force her to see the other truth that each person deals with their oppression and their good fortune differently, that you cannot lump everyone together by race, or gender, or class. In the end, Theo's story supports something that I have long believed, which is that integration is power because segregation keeps people from recognizing other people's humanity, that proximity creates different kinds of relations (as family or friends or neighbors or coworkers), and that only in our individual relations to one another do we realize this country's ideals of equality and democracy.
The protagonist is forced through her mixed relations to see the mess that racism and capitalism has created, to come to the awful truth that even oppressed people who gain some power might turn against those beneath them. But her familial relations also force her to see the other truth that each person deals with their oppression and their good fortune differently, that you cannot lump everyone together by race, or gender, or class. In the end, Theo's story supports something that I have long believed, which is that integration is power because segregation keeps people from recognizing other people's humanity, that proximity creates different kinds of relations (as family or friends or neighbors or coworkers), and that only in our individual relations to one another do we realize this country's ideals of equality and democracy.
May 19, 2022
This was so good and I wish I saw more buzz about it! It really explores the ideas of identity and fitting in and I loved that it started with Theo as a young child. Seeing 1850s-1860s NYC (specifically Five Points) from a child's perspective was a unique perspective. Theo is half Black and half Irish, and as tensions in NYC rise during the start of the Civil War, you see her being pulled in 2 directions, with the whims of U.S. and state governments stating who is and is not a citizen and status of current and former slaves. It explores themes of race and discrimination, with the complex relationships between Indigenous, Black, and Irish residents of Five Points, but mixed in with that you get the wonder of being a child, like riding in an elevator for the first time.
There is a huge cast of characters, but they are all distinct voices. I loved both of her families and the way they all cared for her and each other. The historical aspect was fantastic and is just what I am looking for in a historical fiction novel.
As a note, there aren't any quotation mark's, so you need to pay attention if reading physically.
Trigger Warnings for racism and race related violence (including lynching), anti-Semitism, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, discussios of loss of loved ones.
Overall, I highly recommend this! It is one of my top books of the year.
There is a huge cast of characters, but they are all distinct voices. I loved both of her families and the way they all cared for her and each other. The historical aspect was fantastic and is just what I am looking for in a historical fiction novel.
As a note, there aren't any quotation mark's, so you need to pay attention if reading physically.
Trigger Warnings for racism and race related violence (including lynching), anti-Semitism, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, discussios of loss of loved ones.
Overall, I highly recommend this! It is one of my top books of the year.
January 28, 2023
This book is so far the clear front-runner of the novels I've read this year, and the one I went in knowing the least about; all the same, it's a masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly. Yes, it's incredibly heavy; yes, it's a tragedy more times than not; and yes, it's disheartening to read Theo's perspective of the world at times. But it's also hopeful, and uplifting, and had me crying tears of joy by the end (which, again, I do not mean that as a euphemism-- it was unexpected but wonderfully earned). I've seen people critique this book for its use of quotation marks (or rather, its lack thereof), but it's such a minor thing (and one that takes a chapter or so to get used to), especially when compared to the weight of the story itself. I was thoroughly emotionally invested, and I haven't been this captivated by a work of historical fiction since my American Girl years-- though, obviously, this novel goes further and deeper than anything sanitized for young readers. I have nothing but praise for Kia Corthron, her research, her attention to detail, and her heart-wrenching story.
February 9, 2023
My first book of 2023 definitely set the bar high. First off, I'm usually NOT a fan of unpunctuated dialogue, but in this book I feel it served a purpose and served as an aid to Theo's voice; her narration felt like childhood memories being recalled upon. In fairness, some of the dialogue was a little too "history-book-esque," as necessary as it was, since a lot of the history relevant to the story was not taught in most schools. This dialogue, while a bit too formal, was necessary for the story to be understood by those of us who don't have history degrees.
I loved seeing Theo and Ciaran's friendship over the years develop from one of begrudged proximity to one of true companionship, which later highlighted Theo's struggle with identity between two cultures in a time when they are in opposition to each other.
What was most moving were the last two chapters, where Theo is at an age where she has more complicated thoughts and opinions about the events going on around her - coinciding with the most tumultuous event in the book. The ending made me cry in a good way, but I definitely had to earn it.
I loved seeing Theo and Ciaran's friendship over the years develop from one of begrudged proximity to one of true companionship, which later highlighted Theo's struggle with identity between two cultures in a time when they are in opposition to each other.
What was most moving were the last two chapters, where Theo is at an age where she has more complicated thoughts and opinions about the events going on around her - coinciding with the most tumultuous event in the book. The ending made me cry in a good way, but I definitely had to earn it.
February 18, 2022
This is one of the best books I’ve read. It’s told in first person from the eyes of mixed race girl of the age of 7. She’s half Irish and half black, and goes between her two families households that live in Five Points NYC on the eve of the Civil War. The book spans 6 years and then has a final chapter that is 10 years later. The characters feel real, the story moves quickly, and there is a lot of history that is covered in these chapters. The relationships between the races and what fueled certain hatred’s between races is explored in such a profound way- by viewing it through the eyes of a child. She tries to keep things simple but starts to see the complexities of things as she ages. And yet she walks the moral ground as she should, and does not succumb to the ease in which one can start to build a prejudice against another. We see the good and the bad in these complex characters and understand both. The writing is phenomenal, the story is gripping. I cannot recommend this book enough-especially if you are a historical fiction lover and a lover of NYC!
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